The Turnbull Government can't even do the easy stuff - Speech

Today in the House of Representatives I called out the Turnbull Government's inability to deliver a tax cut it had promised to Australians that Labor supports!

AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT HOUSE

MEMBERS' 90 SECOND STATEMENT

THURSDAY, 1 SEPTEMBER, 2016

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (13:41): Thank you Deputy Speaker.

On Budget Night the Treasurer said, 'From the 1st of July this year, we will increase the upper limit for the middle-income tax bracket from $80,000 to $87,000 per year.'

And then the Treasurer trampled to an election, stamping on the way the tax cut that he had promised to Australians earning over $80,000 a year.

Today we have introduced into this House the legislation to give effect to this bipartisan tax cut. It could have been done before 1 July—it would have had support from the Labor Party—but the government chose not to do it.

And in today's bill we discover that the benefits of that tax cut from 1 July through to September won't come to Australians until after the end of the 2016-17 tax year.

This is another broken promise and another demonstration of the fact that this government is unable to implement the basic aspects of government.

They can't run a census.

They can't deliver an omnibus savings bill which actually has the maths done up correctly.

And now they have shown that they can't deliver a bipartisan tax cut.

If the Turnbull Government can't do the easy stuff, how can Australians think that they are going to be able to do the hard stuff?

Australians should be rightly outraged by the fact that they are not getting this bipartisan tax cut simply as a result of the ineptitude of the Turnbull Government.